


In A Word

by LibraryMage



Series: Break Your Chains [8]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autistic Character, Autistic Ezra Bridger, Gen, Past Child Abuse, Permanent Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 22:25:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12068184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraryMage/pseuds/LibraryMage
Summary: Hera tells Ezra something he didn't know he needed to hear.





	In A Word

**Author's Note:**

> warning for: heavy focus on past child abuse and an abuse victim blaming themselves for their abuse

“Don’t know why I didn’t see this coming,” Hera said as she led the way to the cockpit.  “Every time I send Chopper on a supply run with someone, I find something else I need another set of hands for.”

“Where do you need me?” Ezra asked as they entered the cockpit.  When Hera had asked for his help, he didn’t exactly understand what he’d be doing.  She’d used a lot of jargon that went over his head.  But he’d help either way.

Hera gestured to a panel on the wall that had been pried open, revealing a mess of wiring behind it.

“See those two wires I pulled out?” she said.  “I need you to reconnect them on my mark.”

Ezra nodded.  Hera crouched down under the ship’s main controls.

“Ready?” he heard her say after a moment.  “Now.”

Ezra slid the wires back into place.  In his peripheral vision, he saw Hera crawl out from her position under the controls and stand up.  As he stepped away from the open panel, he caught sight of her face.  The worried look in her eyes unsettled him.

“Where did that come from?” she asked, her fingers lightly brushing against his neck as she pushed his hair out of the way.  Ezra realized she was looking at the mark on his neck, white scar tissue in sharp contrast against his brown skin.

“Lightsaber,” he said, covering the mark with one hand, more to erase the feeling of Hera’s too-light touch than to hide the scar from her.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” he explained, seeing the look on her face and feeling her spike of concern.  He hoped he sounded as reassuring as he was trying to be.  “It was just during training.”

That concerned feeling wasn’t going away, so he pushed forward.  “It was an accident,” he said.

As he said it, he had a distinct memory of the burning heat of two lightsabers crossed over his throat, the searing pain of one of the blades against his skin.

“Kind of,” he amended with a shrug.

The look on Hera’s face sent trills of anxiety shooting through him, though he couldn’t explain why.

“What?” he asked defensively, his voice suddenly a little too harsh.

“Sorry,” Hera said, looking away.  Ezra’s face burned with embarrassment at his reaction.

“It’s just that it’s one thing to know someone was abused,” she explained.  “It’s another thing to see something like that.”

“I wasn’t abused,” Ezra said.  He knew what the word meant.  He’d heard it before, when he was a kid and his parents had been talking about someone, he thought maybe a neighbor of theirs.  They hadn’t realized he’d overheard until he’d asked what the word meant.  And he knew it didn’t apply to him.

Hera was looking at him strangely again, her head tilted just slightly to the side, her mouth pressed into a worried line.  It was different from before, but that feeling of concern was back.  It made something in Ezra’s stomach tighten.

“I wasn’t,” he insisted, though his certainly was wavering under Hera’s gaze.

Hera was quiet as she searched for the right words.

“Ezra, you were,” Hera said.  She saw his eyes narrow, like he was trying to understand someone speaking a language he only knew a little of.

“But I -- he wasn’t _trying_ to hurt me,” Ezra said.  “Not like that.  He was trying to help me get stronger so I could stand a chance against the Sith.”

“Ezra, after everything he did, do you really think he wasn’t trying to hurt you?” Hera asked.

She saw Ezra’s hand jump back to his neck, two fingers running along the edge of the scar.  His eyes were unfocused, like he was remembering something.

“That wasn’t really an accident, was it?” she asked.

* * *

 

_Ezra froze, his blade’s descent coming to a halt above Maul’s chest.  A burst of pain hit him as Maul kicked the side of his left knee and the Force itself slammed against his right side.  As he hit the ground, he felt his lightsaber being pulled from his hand.  In less than a second, Maul was on him, one knee slamming into Ezra’s chest, pinning him to the floor, the two red blades crossed just above his throat._

_“I’ve told you before,” he said, staring into Ezra’s eyes, “if you hesitate, it could cost you your life.”_

_Ezra didn’t say anything.  Those blades were so close, he didn’t want to risk any movement.  He couldn’t even avert his eyes from Maul’s painful, burning gaze._

_“Do you understand me?” Maul asked._

_“Yes,” Ezra said.  One of the blades twitched just the slightest bit closer to his neck.  Ezra flinched away instinctively and felt the other blade biting into his skin.  He didn’t cry out, didn’t even gasp in pain.  “Yes, Master,” he said.  “I understand.”_

_The blades were switched off, but Maul still had Ezra pinned down.  He grabbed Ezra’s chin, forcing the boy to keep looking into his eyes.  The bright, burning stare hurt almost as much as the wound on Ezra’s neck._

_“Do not hesitate again,” he said before releasing Ezra and taking a step back._

_Slowly, Ezra stood up._

_“You didn’t want me to kill you,” he said, still confused and reeling._

_“I would have stopped you if you’d even tried,” Maul told him._

* * *

 

“I don’t know,” Ezra said.  Maybe it hadn’t been an accident, not completely, but _he_ was the one who’d moved and caused the blade to touch his skin.  Maul hadn’t been trying to do that to him.  That had been his own mistake.

He followed that thought and it led him to a clear reason why Hera was wrong.

“I went with him,” he said.  “I chose -- I knew it was going to be harsh.  He _told_ me that.  It’s what I signed up for.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Hera told him.

“It doesn’t?”

“No,” Hera said, her voice gentle but still insistent.  “What matters is that he hurt you.  He may have called it training.  He may have convinced you it was a good thing.  He might even have thought it _was_.  But it’s still abuse.”

Ezra turned the word over in his head, carefully considering it and examining it and pulling it apart.  He was suddenly painfully aware of the scar, like it was burning all over again.  He remembered the other scars.  He remembered that damn cell and how terrified he’d been when he was locked in there, how he’d cried the first time only to be left there again.  He remembered being forced to look up into those burning yellow eyes no matter how much it hurt him.  He remembered every time he’d asked too many questions and been silenced by a slap to the face.  He remembered being so scared he’d slashed himself open with his own lightsaber in some desperate attempt to avoid punishment.  He remembered being punished anyway.

Abuse.  That was abuse.  All of it.  The more he thought about it, the more it began to make sense.  Slow, painful sense like a knife being dragged across his skin.

Hera seemed to almost sense the moment it began to fall into place in Ezra’s head.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “I know it’s --”

“It’s not your fault,” Ezra said, cutting off her apology.

“It’s not yours, either,” Hera told him.

Ezra shrugged.  He knew she was trying to be kind, but it was.  He’d chosen to be Maul’s apprentice.  Maybe that didn’t change the fact that he’d been abused, but that still counted for something, didn’t it?  He’d had some idea of what he was getting into, and during those years, he’d done things he should have known Maul would see as him being weak and disobedient.  He may have been abused, but hadn’t he been responsible?

Ezra suddenly just wanted to run.  Hera was no longer looking at him, realizing just how uncomfortable he was, but he still felt like she was staring at him with that soft, sympathetic look in her eyes.  He didn’t even know why it bothered him so much that Hera was being nice to him.  He just knew that it did and he wanted to get away from this conversation, from _her_ , as fast as possible.

“You still need me?” he asked.

“No,” Hera said, picking up on his desperation to get away.  “We’re good here.”

She had barely finished the sentence before Ezra had bolted from the cockpit.

* * *

 

Zeb didn’t have to be Force sensitive to feel the distress radiating off of Ezra as the kid raced into their room and hauled himself up onto his bunk.  He was so freaked out he may as well have been screaming.

“You okay, kid?” Zeb asked, looking up at the bottom of the bunk above him as though he could see through it.

Ezra responded with a quiet, muffled sound somewhere between a hum and a whimper.  Zeb stood up and leaned against the top bunk.  Ezra had pushed himself into the corner, rocking a little as he scratched at his arms.  Zeb didn’t think anything of it.  Sabine didn’t scratch, but she hit her head when she was upset, and she rarely hurt herself badly enough to worry.  Ezra would probably be fine.  Probably.

“What’s wrong?” Zeb asked.

“Just something Hera said,” Ezra told him, his voice a low mumble.  “She said I was abused.”

“Well, weren’t you?” Zeb asked him.  He’d have thought that was obvious.

Ezra nodded.  “I think so,” he said.  “I just never really thought of it like that before.”

There was something in his voice that set Zeb on edge.  He sounded…small.  Scared.  Not for the first time, it hit Zeb that, as capable as he was, Ezra was still just a little kid.

“Thinking about it like that make you feel any better?” Zeb asked, at a loss for what to say.  This was something Kanan or Hera should be dealing with, not him.

“I don’t know,” Ezra muttered.  “It just feels different.  Or not different.  I don’t know.  I don’t know what to think about any of this.”

“Can't be easy to think about,” Zeb said.

Ezra shook his head, drawing his knees up to his chest.

“Alright,” Zeb said.  “I can take a hint.  I’ll leave you alone.”

Zeb paused as he opened the door, and turned back to Ezra.

“If he touches you again, I’ll kill him myself,” he said.

“I’m starting to think you might have to wait in line,” Ezra told him.

“Yeah,” Zeb agreed.  “I wouldn’t want to get between Hera and someone who hurt one her crew.”


End file.
